Nissan The New Benchmark In Consistency For EV Sales As 2,225 Sold In June – Even Better Results To Come

The new US-made 2013 model year LEAF has seemingly made Nissan the new standard when it comes to sales consistency and excellence for selling plug-in vehicles in the United States.

While The 2013 Nissan LEAF Sales Have Softened Some In Japan, Not So In The US

This month, Nissan came up just 11 sales short of having their best ever month, with 2,225 cars sold in June.

Year-over-year overall , Nissan has now increased sales by 213% and has surpassed the amount of cars sold in total in all of 2012 (9,839 vs 9,819)

And it appears that crossing the 2,000 plateau for sales every month is just the beginning, as Brendan Jones, director of electric vehicle infrastructure strategy for Nissan North America, said LEAF sales will soon shoot past that 2,000 unit average in the coming months.

Inventory levels for the LEAF would back up Mr. Jones’ assumption of future strong sales for the car, as Nissan has struggled to fill in dealer inventories on a nation level through the end of this month – despite earlier expectations to catch up to demand by the beginning of May.

Nissan currently has about 35 days inventory available on the LEAF. A good problem to have.

The less expensive 2013 Nissan LEAF lineup, along with the new $28,800 “S” trim level, has seen Nissan’s sales sky-rocket by almost 400% since the slightly update version of car went on sale in late February.

March: 2,236

April: 1,937

May: 2,138

June: 2,225

Over that same time period that the 2013 LEAF has been on sale (the past 4 months), no other plug-in has sold more copies

While I agree the LEAF is an, ahem, interesting-looking vehicle, I think that was done on purpose. Think about when the Prius first came out. It looked like any other tiny econobox. After they redesigned it, sales took off. People *wanted* other people to know how “environmentally friendly” they were, and the Prius’ unique looks made it obvious to the neighbors. (Sad that humans need this level of self-satisfaction, but I digress.)

The LEAF was also designed to be unique — both for functional and non-functional reasons. When you see one on the road, it’s not as weird looking as some EVs (my i-MiEV is the perfect example), but it’s not as bland as many econoboxes either. I think they found a good mid-point between weird and boring.

Except that when Toyota made the Gen 2 Prius:
– They made it larger
– They made it a hatchback
– They made it more efficient
– Gas prices had been rising (it went over $2(!) in CA during fall 2003 when the Gen 2 was released)

Although sales doubled in 2004, the Prius didn’t hit 100,000 annual sales until 2005 when there were further gas price increases. Although the Civic Hybrid had competitive ratings it was the same price or more expensive, didn’t give the same driving experience (in the city in particular) and had far worse utility. Basically nothing matched it.

I feel the effect on sales of the Prius’ unique appearance is completely overblown. This should be obvious from the fact that improvements to the latest iterations of anonymous mid-size hybrids from Ford and Toyota have led to a significant bump in sales to the point that the Camry Hybrid outsells the more identifiable Prius v.

Actually, the Leaf rather looks like an old time station wagon, and therefore seems to be quite space efficient (which you’ll need for your 2 growing kids).

It does have that bug-eye japanese styling which also appears on many ICE imports, but I’m guessing younger drivers are more and more accepting of the looks, although judging by comments I get, nothing compares in desirability to a LOTUS, especially amoungst the younger crowd.

This is why Detroit Electric should be wildly successful with their new Alphabet Soup Lotus Roadster (Evora based?); that is if they restrain themselves with the pricing..

I completely agree that the Leaf excels at functionality. As I said, I bought mine despite the looks. But there are plenty of good things about the design – lots of headroom (I’m short and don’t need/want it for myself, but boy does it help getting kids in/out of car seats), a deep trunk (comparable in size to a mid-sized sedan), a hatchback for loading large items, and even the headlights are designed to deflect airflow away from the side mirrors for decreased road noise.

It’s really hard to beat the look of a Lotus. The roadster is a gorgeous car, especially in green!

When viewed from front, (like main photo above) the LEAF is eye-catching and few have issue with design esthetics. Different, but not hard on the eyes.

Where design esthetics are a turn off are the rear quarter panels. Mostly this is the only view an ICE’d driver will ever see as LEAF jumps away from intersection when the light turns green. Having a better looking rear-quarter could greatly improve sales as drivers “appreciate the great design esthetic” that just jumped out in front of them! (Nissan, are you listening?)

People generally like to be in a vehicle with design esthetics that are different, but are pleasing to most eyes!

I read some where that in a large proportion of men show physical signs of arousal when looking at sports cars. Apparently this is due to the fact that sports cars are aggressively linked to masculinity and sex when advertised. I am not sure how true this is (I read it on the internet) but it is obvious that people are totally irrational about cars and that irrational behavior is largely driven by advertising and the treating of cars like they are children or friends (i.e. giving them names, suggesting they are cheeky, naughty, playful, manly, etc.). All of this means that I think the next generation of LEAF will be much better looking because there will be a whole lot more pictures, articles and people talking about its “personality” and how much of a nice guy/girl it is. Nissan have done a good job making a car that is just fantastic to drive and really practical, now all we need is the advertising team and the press to make it more attractive. Anyway, I am glad that I own a tubby little Yaris and take a great big smelly fat bus to work as it means that I am… Read more »